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Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Best "Surreptitious" Non-Man Writer (Nominations Needed)

Who is the best author who changed their name so that it wouldn't be obvious they were not a man?

J.K. Rowling. Charlotte Bronte. Harper Lee. J.D. Robb.

What do all these authors have in common? They all disguised their names. Either by using an androgynous form of their names or an outright male-sounding pen name. And the reason they did so both in the past and today is because of rampant sexism within the publishing industry.

So May's poll is for the authors who changed their names to male sounding or ambiguous names to avoid the sexist gatekeepers of the publishing industry.

The Rules

1- You might have to do a tiny bit of research for this poll, but in the interest of inclusion, I'm not going to run around verifying why each author chose their pen name. Fortunately Google offers a lot of lists of just these sorts of writers. And as long as you don't nominate a man, we're fine. And as there are more than two genders (all of which would have difficulty from the cis male gatekeepers) if you find any non-binary writers who have changed their names, you can nominate them as well.

2- Since this isn't strictly a fiction poll, you may nominate writers in other genres, but remember that our poll is about the best. This isn't a Daily Double to see how many you can come up with. But if you want to put up a blogger or non-fiction writer that'll be fine.

3- You may nominate two (2) authors. (Remember that I am a horrid and unyielding power hungry monster here at Writing About Writing. To encourage reading and reading comprehension I will NOT take any characters beyond your second nomination.) If you nominate more than two characters, I will only take your first two and consider any beyond that to be "pre-seconding" for a future nomination.

4- You may (and should) second as many nominations of others as you wish. No characters will be going on to our poll that doesn't get at least one second.

5- Please put your nominations here. I will take books nominated as comments to this post on other social media; however, they may not get the seconds you need because no one will see them.

About the Author

Chris Brecheen is just this guy who loves to write. He's been doing it for thirty years, and even got a degree in Creative Writing that now covers a hole in his drywall. These days he focuses his pretentious, hackneyed tripe on this blog, which is two teaspoons magical journey, one cup of advice given as satire, a dash of talking cat, a splash of personified ideals, a (very) healthy dollop of pervy candor, eight heaping tablespoons of toeing the knife-edge line between irreverence and blasphemy, diced guest bloggers who live inside his head (and a couple who don't), a sprinkle of words used pretty much with the express intention of keeping prudes offended in perpetuity, regular Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly references, at least one doomsday plot per season, and a slice of pressed milk curd provided by the weird guy who lives on the third floor. Add three or four sprigs of social justice and simmer.

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